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CNN Live Today

Police Ponder Possible New Lead in Smart Case

Aired June 18, 2002 - 12:11   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Police in Salt Lake City have an intriguing new lead in their search for the missing 14-year-old girl, Elizabeth Smart.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Salt Lake City with a live update -- Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN DALLAS BUREAU CHIEF: Well Kyra, we want to pass along some new information we're getting now. We understand that at 11:00 Mountain Time, 1:00 Eastern, the FBI will be here at the Smart family church, which is this church here, to offer a briefing. And in that briefing they will give an updated description of the suspect they're looking for in this case.

And we understand they're going to describe the mannerisms that the man used inside the house when he abducted 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart, and that includes a description that this suspect is perhaps soft spoken and polite. Now again, that briefing is at 11:00 Mountain Time, 1:00 Eastern. We will be able to bring that to you live when it happens.

But one of the other issues we're talking about this morning is a videotape that police are trying to garner as much information from as possible. To give you the lay of the land here, as we mentioned, this is the Smart family church here. Now if you whip around just across the street, this is the Shriner Children's Hospital. And if you look over the hill over here, the row of houses, that's where the Smart family lives, just directly behind this hospital here.

Now on the night of June 5, the director -- systems director of security who works here at Shriners Hospital was making his rounds, and he noticed what he thought was a suspicious car in this parking lot. You can see the car is just up here on the left. And he ran back inside and circled the surveillance cameras that the hospital uses there and focused it in on the cars, and he found what he thought was a description that someone matched the description of the suspect they're looking for.

Fred Trujillo saying that the man in the car was wearing a tan jacket. Police also say that the suspect in this case was also wearing a tan jacket. And it was the first time, Trujillo says, that he's ever been compelled to call the police because of something that he saw right here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FRED TRUJILLO: I watched him for a total of maybe seven or eight minutes total. Again, he adjusted his vehicle several times, turned his lights on and off several times. And so I wanted -- it's a private hospital, and so he didn't have any business there. And we want to kind of move those people along.

And so what I did was I called PD to send a cruiser by and see if they had a patrol car available. And before the police could arrive, a second vehicle actually pulled in. I didn't see which direction the vehicle came from, the second vehicle. They pulled in together, they interacted for maybe 20 or 30 seconds, and they both left very rapidly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: Now, Trujillo said the video camera is just up here on the hospital. The parking lot that we've been talking about is just right up on top of this hill. You can see some of the cars there.

There was a second car that also pulled up. Trujillo said the second car pulled up just for a moment and then disappeared again, so he's not exactly sure what that means.

Also, police have gotten a hold of that surveillance videotape and they've been using that. Unfortunately, police say that the videotape, since it was at night -- it was about 1:00 in the morning when this incident took place, about the same time that the abduction of Elizabeth Smart happened -- that the videotape is too dark and very hard to garner information from.

But again, Kyra, the information we're looking forward to now is the information from FBI that we suspect will be released here in just the next couple of hours -- Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: Ed, interesting developments. We look forward to that news conference at 1:00 Eastern Time. Thank you.

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